TooGoodToBeThrough

Twilight Hopscotch

Oh, happy day!  Twilight Hopscotch (quilt No. 8) is finished and ready for birthday gifting Friday evening.  I hope the recipient loves this quilt half as much as I do.   It was a joy to make -- even with all the fabric anguish I put myself through. 

Green is the recipient's favorite color, and I used as much as I could without making it all green.   

Now I'm ready to start my next project, a Charmed Whirligigs pattern using Cherish Nature by Deb Strain for Moda.  I love the greens and spicy blues in this collection and can't wait to get started.

That's all for now.

Me,
Jane

Three's the Charm

After a very disappointing start on two previous quilts in almost as many weeks, I gave it one more try, and I'm so glad I did.  As the blocks for this quilt began to come together, I realized this was the quilt I was supposed to make all along.

 

The pattern is a lap-size quilt called Twilight Hopscotch and I found it in Kim Diehl's book "Simple Comforts."  There are some great scrappy quilt patterns in the book, too.  If you're not sure it's a book you want to invest in, you may be able to find it at your library, as I did. 

Twilight Hopscotch was such a simple pattern, but one with a lot of impact and a pleasure to sew.  I started cutting the fabric Friday evening and had the blocks nearly finished while watching the Academy Awards Sunday evening.  I sewed the blocks together last night, added the borders today, and will take it to the quilter tomorrow.  

Hard as I tried to keep right sides together when piecing the blocks, I managed to attach one piece of the faint white pin dot fabric backwards (I'm surprised there weren't more!).  It was smack in the center of the quilt, and although the quilt is a gift for someone, and I won't have to look at it, I couldn't leave it.  Of all the pieces, thankfully it was this large rectangle, which was the easiest to remove and replace. 

While it's not technically finished, quilt No. 8 is one for the record books -- six days from start to finished flimsy, and I enjoyed every moment of it (okay, maybe not the mitered outer border).  The quilter should have it ready in about a week and a half, plenty of time to attach the binding and gift wrap it for the April 2nd birthday.  I hope the recipient likes it as much as I do.

A Good Case of Bad Taste

I've been under the weather the last couple of weeks... with a good case of Bad Taste. 

My previous post shows the fabrics I had chosen for a Lady of the Lakes quilt that I planned to make as a birthday gift for a friend's mother -- a sweet women of Irish decent with a love for all things green.  I finished half of the 18 blocks and realized the greens just weren't working well together at all.  

 

I decided to put LOTL on the back burner and finish it for myself sometime this spring.  Though I think I'll pick just one green fabric and mix up the lights.  My favorite green is this cheerful Moda Marbled Swirl fabric.  My camera is exposure is off -- the fabrics look much richer than this.

I still wanted to make a birthday quilt that I needed to have finished by April 2.  But now I needed a new pattern and fabric and that all-important inspiration, so I drove an hour out of town to a quaint little quilt store in the heart of Oregon's wine country.  The shop is adorable and has a nice selection of fabrics, patterns, and kits.  In fact, everything is so cute and quaint that if you don't have a good idea of what you're looking for, you can easily lose your critical eye mind and think you're making good choices... when you're not!  I picked out a new pattern and the shop owner's daughter helped me choose fabrics.  

These fabrics looked entirely different together on the bolt.  We tried to pick up the olivey green and rust in the Spice Market floral that I used in the center of the block and had planned to use as the border fabric. 

Ugh.

I foolishly kept making blocks, thinking I might be able to pull it out of this tailspin...

My camera doesn't capture the melted-Creamsicle glow of the lightest fabric with the jarring orangey-rust and olive green.  And look at the gigantic scale of that floral print next to the other fabrics!  What was I thinking?

Two failures and I still didn't have a birthday quilt.  I was beyond discouraged and beginning to think I had no business quilting.  But I can be stubborn, so like the rider who falls off her horse, I got back up in the saddle for one more try.  Yesterday afternoon I found a sweet, simple pattern in a book I borrowed from the library (Simple Comforts by Kim Diehl), headed to my favorite (local) quilt store, and picked out new fabrics.  I finished one block last night, and I'm very happy with it.  More importantly, I think the recipient is going to like it, too!  It will be a lap-size quilt, so if I can finish it in the next week and get to the quilter for an overall pattern, I should have it back in time for the birthday.